building ideas for kids

My boys love to build. Tinker toys, Lincoln logs, legos, couch cushions, you name it.


A few weeks ago, Twin B. found this book at the library, and we’ve been having a blast trying out different mediums for building. Jello cubes in ice cube trays (made with extra gelatin), looks like fun.

Sugar cube pyramids are another. We went to Jewel and found sugar cubes on clearance for a dollar a box, and stocked up. We now have one thousand sugar cubes—or at least we did before starting our construction projects.

The book recommends making a mortar out of equal parts flour, corn starch and water. I just mix it up into it looks nice and thick. Then, you build.



It’s that simple.

And the kids love it!

Cool building projects on a rainy day works for me. Check out more great ideas at We are that Family.

how to host a water balloon fight

I love having fun. And nothing says fun like a water balloon fight.

I know, I know. The mess. The trouble. The work. But stay with me for a minute. I don’t know about girls, but little boys and water balloons are a perfect match. It involves violence, throwing things, water, and making a mess all in one package. And they’re cheap!

Want to be the coolest mom on the block? Here’s the plan:

Buy a lot of water balloons. Start filling them up before guests arrive.

Fill a cooler with juice boxes or put a jug of water outside for kids to help themselves. You don’t want to be running in and out of the house during the fight. (Well, maybe you want to, but the importance of supervision cannot be overstated.)

Lay a thick towel on the floor for kids to walk on when they do need to go into the house and use the restroom. (And, for goodness sakes, don’t sweep or mop the floor before the kids come over. Do this after they’re gone.)

Set ground rules. No water balloons to the face is a good one.

And here’s my favorite tip. During our last water balloon fight, towards the end, I had the boys pick up the scraps of water balloons all over the yard by “charging” for the new ones. So, bring me ten popped balloons and get one full one. When we were fifteen minutes from the end, that number jumped to twenty.

And it worked.

As moms, we all want our kids to just help because they want to and jump in and say, “Wow, Mrs. Llama. You’ve worked really hard and I’m so grateful. Let me help you with that.” But they never will. (At least not at my house.) And so we teach the kids to help. That’s part of having a fun day—cleaning up at the end.

By the time the kids left, the water balloons were picked up. The yard was a muddy mess, but that’s another issue entirely. And as a wise friend once asked me, “Are you raising children or are you raising lawns?”

Someday, my lawn will look great. And I'll be sitting in the backyard sipping iced tea, remembering all the fun afternoons I spent with my boys. Having water balloon fights.

If you're looking for more fun household tips, check out We are that Family for more great Works for me Wednesday tips!

teacher gifts

At different times during the school year, we give gifts to the boys’ teachers. The end of the school year is one of those times.

I always do consumable gifts. No mugs or ornaments or chachkas. We usually include a small gift card (Starbucks, if they're coffee drinkers), a yummy homemade treat and a handwritten thank you note from both the student and me. I try to include specific examples of things I appreciated, like “Thank you for calling me right away when Johnny started picking his toes in class.”

Nobody was really picking his toes, but you get my drift.

The boys usually keep their notes short, but a simple “Thanks for being my teacher this year. I enjoyed the field trip to the math museum” is nice, I think. Even the preschooler can draw a picture.

A few days ago I was on Walgreen’s photo website when the inspiration struck: photo collage cards. It’s perfect. I pulled a few pictures from each of the 3 boys—including one of them with their teachers taken at an open house—and arranged them on the card along with the caption, “Thanks for a great year!” (If you do the cards at Walgreens, click on the "folded cards" section. This allows you to buy only one card, instead of 20.)

It only took a few minutes and each card was only $1.99. I picked up a few treats at Trader Joe’s along with gift bags, we’ll do our handwritten notes in the cards, and call it good.

Past teachers have told me how much they appreciate the encouraging words from both me and their student. We all need encouragement, so even if you can’t afford a fancy gift, do write a note.

Thoughtful teacher gifts for a great price works for me! For more great tips, head over to We are that Family.

Walgreens did not ask me to write this or give me anything free. You could do these cards at any photo center. Walgreens just happens to be convenient.

summer survival cooking

I love spending hot, summer afternoons at our neighborhood swimming pool. Love it. What I don’t love is figuring out what to make for dinner when we walk through the door and everyone is starving!

Summer cooking is all about survival at my house. Here’s what works for me:

Keep raw veggies and dip in the fridge to pull out as soon as you walk in the door. The kids will chow down, and if they spoil their appetite for dinner, who cares? They’re eating vegetables.

Ditto on the fruit. A bowl of washed grapes or sliced apples is easy to pull out for a quick and nutritious snack. (Just toss the apples with a little orange juice to keep them from browning.)

We like to grill. Did you know you can freeze your meat right in the marinade? So, when you find chicken on sale, buy a bunch, whip up a double batch of your favorite marinade, divide it into ziplock bags and freeze the meat right in the marinade. Here’s one of my favorite recipes for chicken and pork:

ZESTY DIJON MARINADE
(Cooking Light, July 1997)

1 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed

Combine all ingredients, and stir marinade well. Yield: 1 1/2 cups.

Head over to We are That Family for more great tips!

I scream, you scream...

Today was our last day of school, and we’re living it up over here at the Llama household. Each of the boys invited a friend over to play, and they had a blast playing kickball, having relay races, and making ice cream in ziplock bags.

That’s right.

Ice cream in ziplock bags.

Curious? Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk or half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)
6 tablespoons rock salt

Preparation:

Put cream, vanilla and sugar into a pint or quart-sized freezer bag. Seal well.

Fill a large, gallon-sized freezer bag with ice. Add the salt.

Put the smaller bag into the larger bag and seal.

Shake and mix until the ice cream thickens, about 10 minutes. You can also let the kids gently throw the bag back and forth to help mix the ice cream. The bag gets very cold, so you might want to use towels to hold it.

Makes 1 serving.

We are that Family is hosting a carnival of ideas, so click here to read more fun summer boredom busters!

You put what, where?

Winter in the Midwest is harsh on the skin—especially the hands! After a recent round of a nasty cold and flu virus, I found myself with chapped and bleeding hands from washing them so often.

It was just before bedtime, and I couldn’t find my favorite hand cream. (The good, expensive stuff that actually works.) So I grabbed what was handy: Diaper rash cream.

We’ve used Paladin cream since our twins were born seven years ago, and love it. It’s thick and when the babies had a rash, it went away quickly with a thick layer of this stuff.

So I tried it on my hands overnight. And sure enough—in the morning, my hands were soft again!

It sounds strange, I know. But diaper rash cream on my hands in the winter is what Works for Me! Now head over to Shannon’s for more great tips!

make ahead gravy

We brine our Thanksgiving turkey, which produces a wonderful, juicy bird, but predictably nasty gravy. (Too salty.) A few years ago, I found this recipe and have made it every year since. It sounds time consuming, but it's not. If you're in the kitchen already, it's just in the background, roasting or boiling. And it produces delicious gravy every time. And the best part? When you're rushing around at the last minute getting all the food on the table, you're not making gravy. You're hitting buttons on the microwave to reheat it!

Making gravy before Thanksgiving totally works for me. Now head over to Shannon's for more great tips!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Make Ahead Turkey Gravy

4 turkey wings (about 3 lbs.) or 3 turkey legs
2 medium onions -- peeled and quartered
1 cup water
8 cups chicken broth (canned or homeade)
3/4 cup chopped carrot
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon black pepper


Heat oven to 400 degrees. Have a large roasting pan ready. Arrange wings in single layer in pan. Scatter onions over top. Roast 1 1/4 hours or until wings are browned.

Put wings and onions into 5-6 quart pot. Add water to pan and stir to scrape up any brown bits on bottom. Add to the pot. Add 6 cups broth (refrigerate remaining 2 cups), the carrot, and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Remove wings to a cutting board. When cool pull off skin and meat. Discard skin and save meat for another use.

Strain broth into 3 quart saucepan, pressing vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard veggies and skim fat off broth. Whisk flour into remaining 2 cups of broth until smooth. Bring broth in saucepan to a boil, slowly whisk in flour mixture, boil 3-4 minutes to thicken and remove floury taste. Stir in butter and pepper. Refrigerate up to one week or freeze up to three months.

Source: "Womans Day"

Yield: "8 cups"

where a kid can be a kid

I hate Chuck E. Cheese.

There, I said it. That happy place where a kid can be a kid feels like a special kind of torture to me. Vomity pizza and ALL OF THE LOUDNESS pushes me over the edge every time.

If you’re nodding in agreement, then what I’m about to say could very well change your life. (Or at least the frequency of your visits to Kid Nirvana, which will change your kids’ lives and make you a very popular mom. At least for a day.)

Go to Chuck E. Cheese in the morning. They open early, and it’s practically empty. Bring those coupons and buy hundreds of tokens for fifteen bucks. Split them up among your kids, even save some for another visit, and let your kids loose.

As my toddler now says: awesome!

Stay for a few hours and then leave. Last time we went across the street to Panera and had soup for lunch, but you could also just head home. Last time we did this Twin A. confided that he didn’t really care for the pizza much either.

So there you go. Chuck E. Cheese in the morning totally works for me! Now head over to Rocks in my Dryer for more great tips!

planning to get sick

As you may have guessed from my previous post, the flu has been making its way through our household. No fun, but it did remind me to restock my “sick shelf” in the pantry.

Through the winter and spring months, I keep my pantry stocked with soda crackers, sprite, jello, and chicken noodle soup (my boys love the “Soup at Hand”). I also make sure we have plenty of paper towels, and as soon as someone in the family “drops,” we stop using cloth towels and switch to paper ones for drying our hands in the bathroom.

It’s a small thing, but when kids are barfing, it’s nice to not have to make a trip to the store.

Having a sick shelf works for me. Now head over to Shannon’s for more great tips! (And try to stay healthy. This flu thing stinks!)

packing lunches

The noisy boys bring a lunch to school every day. Well, every day except Thursday, which is hot lunch day.

But every other day, I pack their lunches. It’s only been a month, so I’m no expert, but I have collected a few lunch packing ideas that seem to be working.

The first one? These thermoses, called “funtainers” are my favorite invention ever. I heat these up with boiling water, then put the hot food in and it stays hot (or at least warm enough) until lunchtime.



A few of our favorite funtainer lunches: mini hot dogs, mini meatballs, macaroni and cheese, and potato soup. The funtainer also keeps things cold, so sometimes I pack vanilla yogurt with a side of granola, or fruit salad.

I’m a planner, so when I plan our dinners for the week I also plan the noisy boys’ lunches. It’s usually pretty simple, but just knowing that Monday is sandwiches, Tuesday is leftover soup, and Wednesday is mac ‘n cheese is helpful.

I spend an hour or so on grocery shopping day prepping food for the lunches: washing and putting grapes in baggies, packing carrots, dividing chips and cookies and crackers into single serve portions, making pudding cups, and so on.

This small investment of time planning and prepping is well worth it during the week when I can pull together yummy lunches in a snap.

Head on over to Rocks in my Dryer for more great tips!

superfast

The Fall schedule is here, but not fall. Yesterday it was 93 degrees. (Thank goodness the noisy boys’ school has air conditioning!)

And Fall? It brings lots of activity with it.

So…in honor of the backwards edition of WFMW, here’s my question: what’s your “it’s soccer practice night and we just walked in the door, but I’ve got to get everyone fed” go-to meal? (It can be make-ahead or super-fast, either way!)

Thanks!

WFMW - iced coffee treat

Finally, summer is here! At my house, that means long trips to the pool, entire days spent outside, and lots of watermelon.

It also means that most days, I’m one tired Mama.

One afternoon, desperate for a caffeine fix, but needing to stay home with a napping child, I concocted the following:

Mama needs Caffeine Iced Vanilla Coffee Treat

Fill a tall glass with ice.

Pour leftover coffee from the morning into the glass, filling about halfway.

Fill the next quarter of the glass with vanilla creamer (can be sugar free, if you want).

Now fill the rest of the glass with milk.

It’s not Starbucks, but it sure hits the spot on a hot summer afternoon! (And, as a bonus, it doesn’t cost four dollars a pop.)

Now make yourself a coffee treat and head over to Rocks in my Dryer and peruse more great recipes, five ingredients or less!

storybook stew

Storybook Stew.

The title caught my eye as baby b. pulled on my arm, eager to go see the huge stuffed bear in the lobby. I grabbed it off the shelf and skimmed it as I explored the rest of the library with my toddler.

This book is brilliant.

It’s a children’s cookbook with recipes and activities that tie in to classic children’s stories. Blueberries for Sal has a recipe for blueberry bread and an activity for scratch art. Heckedy Peg includes the instructions for how to make butter in addition to a yummy cupcake recipe.

I realize that clever Moms make these sorts of connections all the time and probably already think to make some kind of healthy Bear Country Punch after reading The Berenstain Bears and too much Junk Food. But for the rest of us, this book offers a wealth of ideas.

This week, Works for me Wednesday has a theme: Mom, I’m bored! Go check out Rocks in my Dryer for some great boredom busting tips!

trying to be fancy

A few years ago, missionary friends were coming to visit, and I really wanted to make something special for dinner. My husband suggested grilling steaks or ordering pizza, but no, I wanted to make something fancy.

At the time, my twins were toddlers, and I didn’t have time for fancy.

Never mind that, I went to the market and picked up some beautiful halibut steaks, salad, and a loaf of fresh bread. Pulling out a recipe for peppered halibut, I rushed through the recipe, opened a bottle of wine, and warmed the bread.

We gathered around the table to enjoy our meal, and our friends dug in enthusiastically. And then Maria’s face turned bright red and she reached for her water.

Oh no.

I took a bite of fish and the pepper was beyond overpowering. I may as well have served a plate of black pepper to eat with a spoon. It was really that bad.

I immediately apologized and suggested we eat something else, but our missionary friends soldiered on. “Oh no,” Maria said politely, “it’s good!”

But she couldn’t breathe.

I learned an important lesson that day: there is a time for fancy and a time to order a pizza or make sloppy joes. A simple meal prepared well is much more enjoyable than a fancy meal you don’t have time to make. I also learned that the little box of black pepper in my cupboard is not a substitute for freshly ground pepper. Not even close.

For more tips on what doesn’t work, head over to Shannon’s for this week’s special edition of What Doesn’t Work for me Wednesday.

WFMW - birthday cards

Since the noisy boys started Kindergarten last fall, they get invited to their fair share of birthday parties. Early on, I thought I would just decline many of the invitations. After all, you can’t be friends with everyone.

But my perspective changed radically as I saw each of the boys struggle to find his place in his own classroom, away from his twin brother. Making friends on their own was no small thing, and I began to welcome the birthday party invitation.

I have two Kindergarteners, each in their own class with at least a dozen other boys. That’s a lot of birthday parties.

One of the ways I like to keep costs down is to have the boys make a birthday card for their friend. The noisy boys choose a card from this website, and then personalize it with their own message and coloring. They have cool themes like Spiderman and Batman, and at this stage, the boys love making something for their friend.

And the best part? It’s free! Three bucks isn’t that much money, but three bucks twenty-four times over the course of the school year is!

Making our own birthday cards works for me. Head over to Shannon’s for more great tips!

craft overload

I love to encourage creativity in my children. The twins would rather do crafts than just about anything else, and they come up with some really cool stuff. And what the boys’ crafts may lack in quality, let me assure you, they make up for it in quantity.

Oh yes they do.

See these fine creations covering my kitchen table? This is from one morning.



One. Morning.

And they like to make things every day. Which is wonderful, really it is, but all of this creative wonder is wearing me out.

Today is the backwards edition of Works for me Wednesday, and I actually have four questions to ask, but this one seems the most urgent:

What do I do with all of these crafts?

I’ll admit that my strategy at the moment involves some stealth afterhour trips to the trash can. And in the morning when one of the boys asks me, “Mom? Have you seen my skyscraper?” I play dumb. “Skyscraper? Hmmm. I don’t see it anywhere…”

What I need is a plan.

So leave me your best advice for handling all of these crafts, then head back over to Shannon’s. Blogging Moms everywhere need your help!

WFMW - Giving

In my college years, money was tight. Really tight. As in budget-the-quarters-for-laundry tight.

The small church I attended at the time was planning to go on a retreat that I really wanted to go on. I knew I couldn’t just write a check for the fee, so I looked at my budget carefully. The retreat was two months away. At the time, I drank two diet cokes a day. Eliminating those diet cokes would completely pay for my retreat. Happily, I traded my daily coke fix for a season in order to enjoy a weekend of fun.

Have you been keeping up with the Compassion blogging team? Rocks in My Dryer and Boo Mama are two of my favorite Mom blogs, and both of them are in Uganda right now, along with others, blogging for Compassion International. Reading their first hand accounts of extreme poverty in Uganda brings me to tears. And as I weep over my computer, I wonder how many other people are reading along, crying with me? How many of us have these moments of realization, as Shannon did, that we are rich––RICH––compared to most of the world? How many of us realize we could do more for the poor, both here in the U.S. and around the world?

And how many of us will walk away from our computers and do nothing?

I don’t know your story or financial situation, but God does. If reading these stories tugs at your heart, but you don’t know how you could possibly help, bring that desire to God. Ask Him what you could do. And then listen for the answer.

Maybe it’s as simple as giving up Diet Coke. Maybe it's something more radical. I don't know, but God does. Ask Him.

Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

(Matthew 25:37-40 The Message)

Giving sacrificially? It not only works for me, it’s a biblical thing. Check out Don’t Try This at Home, who is graciously hosting this week’s Works for me Wednesday in Shannon’s absence, for more creative ideas from Mom bloggers everywhere!

oatmeal - WFMW

My boys love oatmeal, especially the toddler, baby b. Not the instant stuff, but real old fashioned oats cooked on the stove with a little cinnamon and grated apple. (If you’re cooking for more than one, it really doesn’t take much longer to cook the real stuff and it tastes so much better!)

Recently I stumbled on the perfect way to cool it off––frozen blueberries. Baby b. loves to snack on frozen blueberries, so I threw some into his hot oatmeal. It cools it off, adds great nutrition, and he loves stirring the berries around to make his oatmeal purple.

Frozen blueberries. The perfect oatmeal cooling device. Works for me! Check out Rocks in my Dryer for more great tips!

the travel thing - WFMW

“How do you do it?”

I used to get asked this a lot. With three young children and a husband who constantly traveled, my tongue in cheek answer was, “Not very well.”

My husband no longer travels for work, but he was recently in Siberia for two weeks. He’s home again, thank the Lord, and we all survived just fine.

Here are a few survival tips:

Plan ahead. Make sure you take some time for yourself before your husband leaves. See a movie, go to Starbucks, whatever floats your boat. Schedule playdates for the kids. Trade babysitting with another Mom or hire a sitter once in awhile, for your own sanity. Making meatloaf? Lasagna? Sloppy Joes? Make extra and throw it in the freezer. You’ll have plenty of options for no-cook meals that don’t involve frozen pizza. (I’m not above serving my children frozen food once in awhile, but on an ongoing basis, it’s not good for anyone!)

Eat out. If you like to eat out and it’s not a stress on your family budget, do it. One of the things we found in the midst of our “travel days” was that my husband would come home tired after a long week, longing for a home-cooked meal and time with his family. On the other hand, I would be desperate to get out. Making sure we eat out a few times while he’s gone is a simple fix to this problem.

Stick to the routine. If your kids normally go to bed at seven, don’t keep them up until eight. Keep it simple and consistent.

Ask for help. If a friend calls and says, “Is there anything I can do to help?” say yes! Ask her to watch your kids for an hour or invite yourself over for dinner. At my house, dinnertime is the hardest time to be on my own. Often, we’ve been in the house together all afternoon, and sitting down at the table in the evening feels lonely. So call a friend! Find another Mom on her own for the dinner hour and invite her over for frozen pizza. And don’t clean up. Please, just leave all those toys right where they are. It will be a gift to her to know she is not alone.

Keep it positive. Don’t fall into the trap of self pity. Whether your husband is away on business or pleasure, own it yourself. I meet a lot of bitter, resentful Moms. I was one of them for awhile. Sit down with your spouse and negotiate. Rather than feel victimized, own the decisions you make together. If he travels constantly for work, let him know you need breaks and get them on the calendar. He can’t read your mind; you need to tell him exactly what you need. Looking at your calendar and seeing dates marked off for a weekend away or lunch with a friend can go a long way toward having a positive attitude.

Have fun. Sit down with your kids and play as much as you can. Remember those days before having kids when you thought about what it would be like to be a Mom? You didn’t think about the laundry and mopping the floor and vacuuming up goldfish, did you? I know I didn’t. Ignore the crunchy floor and sit down and play for awhile. Laugh a lot. It’s good for everybody.

Find support. Sometimes things fall apart. For this trip, I was doing fine until day ten. It all fell apart on day ten. Fortunately, we were already planning to go to Grandma’s house for supper. I dropped the kids off and left for awhile, then came back ready for round 2. If you need a break, find one. Don’t fall into the trap of yelling at your kids or overeating or drinking after everyone is in bed. Really. Lean into the support you have, create it if you don’t have it, and find a better way. There is a better way.

Does this post sound preachy? I’m not usually so preachy. If you need help finding support, please leave a comment or email me. I’ve been there.

For more tips, go to Rocks in my Dryer.

children's clothes - WFMW

When I was pregnant with the twins, nobody warned me of the chaos that was about to enter my house. Oh, they mentioned the craziness of feeding and bathing two babies, and the sleepless nights. But nobody warned me about the children’s clothes.

They’ve taken over my house.

I’ve spent countless hours trying to remedy this. My current solution? Give up. You read that correctly: just give up.

Cram as many clothes as you can into their dresser drawers. It doesn’t matter if they fit or not. You can deal with that day-by-day every time your child gets dressed. Anything that doesn’t fit, just throw on the floor. Schooch the pile close to the edge of the room. (It will be easier to ignore that way.)

Every time you’re at Target, buy a couple of those plastic blue bins. When winter comes, throw all of the shorts and t-shirts into the bins. Put the bins in the basement, but don’t label them. That way you can spend hours going through all of the clothes every time the seasons change or the baby is ready for a bigger size.

Stop thinking about the clothes as a headache; embrace them as a hobby. A way of life, even. Clothes all over the house? Works for me! (It must. I’ve been living this way for five-and-a-half years!)

Now, if you’re looking for REAL ideas, head over to Rocks in My Dryer for more great tips!